Dr Richard Blakemore gave this talk as part of an event on ‘Christmas at Sea: 400 Years of the Festive Season Afloat’ on 7 December 2021, organised by the Royal Museums Greenwich and Institute of Historical Research Maritime History & Culture Seminar. We are grateful to the seminar convenors for recording this session, and for their permission to share this video.

Dr Richard Blakemore is a historian and lecturer of the Early Modern Atlantic World at the University of Reading. His research explores the social history of seafarers in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. If you would like to find out more about Richard’s work on the maritime world of Early Modern Britain, you can do so in his recent edited collection here.

Additional Readings:

Journal of Edward Barlow, 1656-1703: https://www.rmg.co.uk/collections/archive/rmgc-object-1129351

Merry Boys of Christmas, 1660: http://ebba.english.ucsb.edu/ballad/30942/image

Four Choice Carols for Christmas Holidays, 1700: http://ebba.english.ucsb.edu/ballad/31130/image

On Cromwell and Christmas: https://www.cromwellmuseum.org/cromwell/did-oliver-cromwell-ban-christmas

On Christmas dinner in Tudor and Stuart England: https://manyheadedmonster.com/2016/12/14/at-christmas-we-banquet-the-rich-with-the-poor-christmas-dinner-in-tudor-stuart-england/

On Father Christmas: https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2018/12/in-comes-i-old-father-christmas-surprising-history-of-a-christmas-icon/